


your heart is a masterpiece (and i will keep it safe)

by parkrstark



Series: Whumptober 2019 [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Brain Damage, Drawing, Hurt Steve Rogers, M/M, Superfamily, Whumptober, shaking hands, tremors - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 03:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20847107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parkrstark/pseuds/parkrstark
Summary: Growing up, Steve didn't have the ability to master any talents like the other kids on his street could. But he could draw. No matter what, he always had that.Until a mission goes so wrong and he loses that too.





	your heart is a masterpiece (and i will keep it safe)

**Author's Note:**

> some stony loving, mentioned superfamily. 
> 
> Last year I had them all in one go, but this year I have to split it up since some of my prompt fills will be superfamily and some just iron dad in different universes.

When Steve was a kid, he wasn’t good at much of anything...he wasn’t even good at living. He struggled to breathe and walk on a daily basis. If he was outside for just a second too long during the winter, he’d be sick in bed for days. 

So attempting to develop any kind of skill would be pointless. He couldn’t play ball with the other boys in the street. He couldn’t chase any kids around to play tag. He could sit and read, but that wasn’t really something to brag about. Everyone could read. 

But not everyone could draw. 

Neither could he at first. Of course, his mother always complimented his sketches, but as he grew older, he knew they were nothing special. Just any other stick figure drawing a kid could have. 

So, he practiced. 

He spent his winters, curled up in a blanket with his mom sketching on every open space in his sketchbook. As the months passed, he could tell when his mother started to actually become impressed by his work. 

And for once in his life, Steve felt proud of something he did. 

That never changed. Even after the serum, his art was always able to make him feel just a little better about himself. When nothing else was going right, at least he had his art. 

Until that mission. 

The mission that was  _ weeks  _ ago. 

He should be fine by now. His serum should have taken care of all the wounds and he should be good as new-- better than new. And for the most part, it did. The gash in his head was closed up and there wasn’t even a scar. The burns were long gone. His skin was as smooth as a baby’s. 

It didn’t scare him at the time. It had been a rough mission and all Steve really remembered was shoving Peter-- as Spider-Man-- out of the way of a falling building. Steve was unconscious for most of it. He woke up hours later in the infirmary, barely remembering anything from the fight. 

When he woke up to see Peter staring at him, that look in his eyes let him know whatever happened was not good. 

It was a few days before he was awake and coherent at the same time. Then the doctors ran through the list of injuries and what was wrong. He didn’t worry about it. Burns healed. Wounds closed. But two words that did scare him were: brain injury. 

For the first few weeks, he had just been slower than normal. Slower to answer questions, slower to speak for he didn’t stumble through his words, slower to react, slower to move. But he was slowly getting better. The doctors didn’t promise a recovery as all brains were different, especially the brain of a super-soldier. 

The one thing that wasn’t getting better was the shaking. ‘Tremors’ the doctor called them. His hands didn’t constantly shake, but they shook at the worst times. 

When he tried cupping Tony’s cheeks in his hands, they shook. 

When he tried clipping Dodger’s leash on his collar, they shook. 

When he tried finishing a puzzle with Peter, they shook. 

When he tried drawing, they shook…

When he was with Tony and he noticed the shaking, he’d just take his hands in his and kiss them. Dodger couldn’t understand why it was taking Steve longer than normal to get him ready for their morning runs. Peter was always patient even when Steve wanted to just throw the puzzle. 

But he drew when he was alone and no one was there to hide his frustrations from. No one was there to calm him down. 

He was trying to finish painting a new landscape for Peter’s fishbowl because of course, they had to change it as seasons and holidays changed. He was making one that was more springy and less winter themed. The snow was melting outside and the sun was coming out for longer amounts. He needed to finish this. 

But every time he tried to paint the flowers on the grass, his muscles twitched and the paintbrush jerked harshly, ruining the painting. He was on his sixth try when he had such a bad tremor that it caused his brush to make a stroke across half the canvas. And ruin it. 

“Dammit!” He yelled, throwing the paintbrush to his table. When he was upset, it only made the tremors worse, but he couldn’t focus on relaxing when he was so pissed off at everything. 

He looked down at his hands as they shook, whether, from the tremor or the anger, he wasn’t sure. “Can’t you just stop?” He yelled. “Can’t you just let me do one thing? One thing I’m good at?  _ Please.  _ Let me paint this for my son. It’s not even for me.”

He stared down at them as they continued to shake. They didn’t stop until...there was someone grabbing them softly. 

He blinked his eyes, trying to clear his blurry vision. His husband was standing in front of him. “Tony, when did you get here?” He wanted to pull his hands away and hide them, but Tony held them still. 

“FRIDAY told me you were upset. You’ve been doing nothing but staring at your hands for a while now…” 

A while? It didn’t feel like more than a few seconds to him. “I’m trying to paint…”

Tony looked down at the table where his discarded mess of a painting was. “The doctors say it could be a few months...why don’t you take it easy?”

Steve grunted, yanking his hands away. They started to shake again. “Because I took it easy for the first 18 years of my life. I never did anything except draw...and now I can’t even do that.”

“Says who?”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Look at it yourself, Tony.” 

“Make it into something new. Isn’t that what your artist always says? Happy little accidents?”

“Don’t use Bob Ross against me,” Steve warned with no heat to his words. “I don’t want any accidents because there shouldn’t be. I just want it to be like normal.”

Tony turned around to his table and picked up a sketchpad and a pencil. He pushed them to Steve’s chest. “Take that and draw.” 

“Tony, I can’t,” he repeated, frustration bleeding through his voice. 

“Do it. Just try.”

Steve huffed loudly so Tony knew he wasn’t happy with him before taking the pad and pencil in his hands. He decided to try something simple and just draw his shield. Just a few circles and a star. He could do that with his eyes closed. 

Except now, he was only a few seconds into it when his pencil suddenly veered left and ruined his circle. He couldn’t even draw a damn circle. His eyes started to burn in humiliation. “I told you I can’t do it!” He hated how his voice broke and shook just like his hands. His damn hands-- he felt like a child. He felt like he was 10-years-old again and Bucky was trying to teach him how to hit a baseball and he couldn’t even do that. 

“Keep drawing, Steve. Don’t stop.” 

“Tony, it’s horrible--.”

“Finish the drawing.” 

Steve clenched his jaw and started to drag his pencil across the paper again. When the pencil spiked away from the arc Steve had going, Tony said, “Don’t stop,” before Steve could even lift his pencil up. He couldn’t stop drawing it until he had it finished. 

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Tony, Peter could draw better holding the pencil with his teeth and drawing with his eyes closed.” Steve refused to even look at the drawing. 

Chuckling, Tony said, “You’re giving him a little too much credit, love.” He sighed when Steve didn’t react to his comment. “Steve, you’re being too hard on yourself. So, it’s a little shaky. It’s not going to last forever. And even if it did, it’s still art and it’s still beautiful. No one can take that away from you.” 

Steve shook his head. That wasn’t beautiful. Not compared to other stuff he’d done. 

Tony hovered his hand over Steve’s hand that was holding the pencil. “May I?”

Steve wasn’t sure what he wanted, but he nodded his head anyway. 

Tony placed his hand over Steve’s and started to move it across the paper, drawing with the pencil. He lifted his hand a few times when needed and when it shook, Steve wanted to pull away of embarrassment, but Tony held his hand through the twitches until they were finished. Even as they admired their work, still he held Steve’s hand. 

“Looks good doesn’t it?”

Steve laughed down at the doodle. It was a messy heart with the initials T and S written inside it. 

“You know,” Tony said softly, resting his chin on Steve’s shoulder. “I think that may be my favorite piece you’ve ever done.” 

Steve hated that he couldn't help but smile. "Yeah. Me too." 


End file.
